Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Large scale tests performed in 1986 and 1987 demonstrated that it may be feasible to conduct effective large scale visual screening for melanoma and other malignant skin lesions. Howard K. Koh et al., “Evaluation of melanoma/skin cancer screening in Massachusetts: Preliminary results,” Cancer 65, no. 2 (1990), pages 375-379. Such screening could dramatically reduce costs of care and improve life.
Unfortunately, the cost of routine screening by dermatologists is prohibitive. To this day the majority (about 90%) of health systems pay only for screening by a “gatekeeper”, generally a patient's primary care physician. C. M. Barnard and M. E. Goldyne, “Evaluation of an asynchronous teleconsultation system for diagnosis of skin cancer and other skin diseases,” Telemedicine Journal and e-Health 6, no. 4 (2000), pages 379-384. Non-specialists such as most primary care physicians have only a 50% probability of identifying malignant skin lesions—functionally equivalent to flipping a coin. See, e.g., Ramsay D L, Fox AB, “The ability of primary care physicians to recognize the common dermatoses,” Arch Dermatol 117, (1981), pages 620-622; and Cassileth B. R., Clark W. H. Jr., Lusk E. J., et al., “How well do physicians recognize melanoma and other problem lesions?” J. Am. Acad. Dermatol. 14 (1986), pages 555-560.
The present disclosure identifies and appreciates that conventional approaches of screening for certain skin conditions are limited and inadequate, due to prohibitive costs of doing so effectively, and that improved accuracy screening technologies allowing automated screening and/or screening by non-specialist medical caregivers, for skin features that involve more than cosmetic skin alteration, would be beneficial for better advance detection of skin conditions.